I am wondering why the HDMI out-put from my Laptop monitor is not displaying on my TV screen. The wallpaper on the Laptop is displayed on the TV screen but nothing else that is on the laptop screen comes on the TV. For example the touch-pad movements, Any app that are open, browser, or any file on the desktop does not show up in the TV screen. Only the background wallpaper is seen on the screen.

My requirement is to stream content on to my TV (TV not a smart TV). I do not require my laptop screen to be functional at the same time as my TV screen.

I have done a full upgrade on debian 9 I even tried debian 8 on different device same issue.

How can I resolve this problem? What should I do? I am a novice so please explain in simple steps.

Last edited by javik on September 4th, 2017, 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was able to figure something out over the weekend. I was able to solve my problem my matching the laptop screen resolution to that of the TV screen. Right clicked on the display and went to display settings. From there on can match resolution. Then turn of my laptop screen from display settings and used only the TV screen.

I suspect that the resolution on the TV is less than that of the laptop. So what have you gained? It seems like a good exercise but I don't the advantage. How much would a flat screen monitor set you back?

Sounds like you made some progress on this, but I thought I'd take a moment to mention that on my machine (Debian 9.3, no DE, just a window manager running on top of X) the default behavior is to position the newly connected screen space beside the existing desktop—making the two screens into one larger "logical" desktop space. So any toolbars or existing windows remain on the original screen and the new screen is basically empty space—waiting for you to either move something there or open something new in that space. This sounds exactly like what you described "The wallpaper on the Laptop is displayed on the TV screen but nothing else that is on the laptop screen comes on the TV."

I think it is possible (perhaps even likely) that if you moved your mouse (touchpad in this case) to the edge of your laptop screen you would find that at one of the edges (probably right-hand but could be left, up or down) the pointer would move right over the edge and appear on the TV.

For example, I set up my TV below my primary desktop so I can easily move movies or webpages (like youtube/netflix) there (to watch them on the TV) while I continue to work in my usual desktop space. I use the command: